He saw something great and terrible, birthed out of that wound on Hortag. He saw the Cyclops return to her, nothing; return to her the final and absolute hatred of the self and desperation for non-existence. He saw the Demon Sly return this to the girl he loved/had loved, all his life, he saw this, the woman, that he loved, that he had – yearned for the existence of God himself -

he saw the Demon Sly have her throat and pour the foulness in her.

Her flailing ceased; her fight ebbed out her, as that cosmic hatred poured inside. He saw all this, Massimo did, wishing to die instead of seeing it; wishing to erase the memory as it was live transmitted/transplanted into his mind; he saw her soul ruptured, he saw that imagistic magic-reality of love and something, something inherent in her that could not be extinguished that -

all along despite everything she had managed to retain, he saw -

Massimo saw it in the face of the absolute.

What she saw.

The unreconcilable nature of evil; the source of which, she saw directly hating her behind that eye, directly and individually wishing her nothing-love, teaching her nothing-love, teaching her this in the way it sexually abused her, and via that talent immanent in that still operating corpse, glance

that reality inside her body via that - final nothing; he saw her – he saw her - leave.

He saw what he could not return. What he'd never been able to, returned instead as this:

That thing that was to replace her; the stilled beauty at the centre of her soul:

A great and terrible beast defecated from the birth canal of the wound - like a prolapsed rectum upon the plane of Hortag - upon a stream of vomit, and bile, and shit, and body parts –

the beast – engulfed itself, slumped itself, engorged itself in passages of obscene liquids/thoughts - expelled and pumped itself; its only -

its only locomotion the masturbation of a shit-caked cock,

toward her.

And behind that hate. Behind what that eye poured inside her. Through the thing that returned the passage of the beast across her.

Her soul left.

And was replaced.

By it.

If Massimo could will his mind away. If he could eradicate the memories written live on his mind. If he could erase reality itself, rather than see the beast consume her, and the manner in which it did that - rather than see, her body consume the beast, rather than see the melding of that – the consumption of her that was her consuming the beast – internal – through her face – that – beast - that had replaced her ineffable beauty with impossible to materially rationalise malignity.

If it was possible to wish himself away. In response.

There was no response. To that.

There was no psychological means by which he could resist what this did to his soul. How it broke him permanently and irreversibly; how, after this image, this image his mind couldn't describe let alone see, of that consumption - the only thing left, the only valid response - the only response possible... was catatonia, was emptiness, was joining the void.

Death. And nothing love if that was the price for not being.

And the worst of it. The worst thing in some ways. His mind flicking forward in currents of fear he thought he'd - see – in the manner of Clua-Sryh -

Her score that beautiful face and body. He thought he'd see the thing inside her corpse, that operated, destroy this imminently, her still beautiful flesh – he thought - the worst thing would be the wilful and sacrilegious destruction of a beauty that -

But it wasn't. The worst was that it kept it.